Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Layla by Colleen Hoover

38 reviews

aliciachauhan_'s review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Violence, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Mental illness, Cursing, Death, and Medical trauma

oravkinovasara's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book isn’t what I expected it to be. I hated Leeds so much at first, well not at first, after like 100 pages and I wanted to kick him in the ass and spit in his face. I was like what the hell is this?? It was really good though. I loved the plot twist, duh, it’s Colleen Hoover. This isn’t my favorite book of hers, but it is still very good, different, but good. Colleen’s mind is just so fantastic, I don’t know how she comes up with this stuff. Overall, I think it was amazing, the ending, the plot was good too, I liked the past to present chapters and Layla was amazing too, well all things considered… 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Domestic abuse, Medical trauma, Medical content, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Blood, Death, Alcohol, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, and Vomit

cedifrango's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Eating disorder, and Violence

kyrstin_p1989's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Not my favorite of Hoover’s by far, this novel was just okay for me mainly because of how unbelievable the plot was. Hoover even writes characters who can’t believe the plot so I don’t know how the reader was expected to. I felt like Leeds was kind of an unredeemable character in that he validates his behavior against Layla by using information he didn’t have before he did the thing. This makes me uncomfortable because the thing was still wrong because he didn’t have all the pertinent information when he did it. I did like how intense the writing was — it made you want to get to the end to know what was happening — but I wouldn’t want to read this for the first time again, like I’ve wanted to with Hoover’s other novels. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Dysphoria, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Suicide attempt, Torture, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Self harm, Confinement, Cursing, Body horror, Death, Eating disorder, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Sexual content, and Gun violence

lapluie8's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

DID NOT SEE THAT COMING!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Gun violence

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts

brynhayes's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Stalking, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Eating disorder, Violence, Confinement, Death, Gaslighting, Grief, Gun violence, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, and Sexual content

avelyn's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

lots of... problematic... characters, to say the least. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, Violence, Sexual content, Panic attacks/disorders, Kidnapping, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, and Confinement

Moderate: Grief, Eating disorder, and Chronic illness

vinnyvee's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, Domestic abuse, and Sexual content

Moderate: Eating disorder

Minor: Drug use and Alcohol

marisacarpico's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Funny that Hoover is most known for straightforward romances and I’ve only read her weird genre experiments. That said, this is pretty strong. I kind of wish it didn’t sacrifice the more difficult route of using Leeds to explore misogyny and the fickleness of some men for the big romantic gesture, but I mostly found it really compelling.

I will say, Hoover really overwrites her characters’ emotional beats. So many sentiments felt repeated to death and his whole book could easily be 20-30 pages shorter and a lot more thrilling. The middle section, where this is just emotional manipulation and gaslighting is tough to read and not having to sit with it so long might make this more emotionally resonant overall. Hoover writes herself out of the corner she puts the characters into, but just barely. This concept might be easier to swallow as a film, honestly. We just have to suspend our disbelief and struggle to keep our sympathy with Leeds for too long in book form. I genuinely considered DNF’ing this for a minute.

The time jumping really felt affected for so much of the book and it ends at a key turn, but you can feel the construction in a way I didn’t like. Also, it’s too hard to believe a choice the characters make re: a visit from some guests in the last act. There’s a reason for it, but it’s just one step too far in asking us to believe theses characters aren’t dumb as fuck. Also, really stupid to ask us to believe Leeds is so curious about Willow yet never takes 5 minutes to see if anyone died in the house or to do some research into why the previous owners suddenly abandoned it. Hoover might be too big to get hard edits at this point, but her editor is asleep at the wheel if they’re just letting shit like that slip by.

Anyway, I seem really critical on this, but it’s got enough that works about it that I don’t think the flaws totally ruin the experience. It’s no Verity, but I do have to appreciate what Hoover was trying to do even if she doesn’t do it particularly well.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Murder, Physical abuse, Suicide attempt, Confinement, Death, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Blood and Body horror

196ahunt's review against another edition

challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Infidelity, Medical trauma, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Eating disorder, Sexual content, Confinement, and Violence